The Yurt of the Rising Sun
by Slays Dragons with Mind
Summary: Kaladin learns that correlation does not imply causation and comes to embrace his feelings for Renarin. Spoilers through Words of Radiance.


Kaladin was surprised to find himself whistling as he stood outside the Oathgate on the Shattered Plains, waiting for Renarin to arrive for their daily combat practice. At first these practices had been just another duty—a supplement to Zahel's lessons in an effort to bring Renarin up to the level of the rest of Bridge Four—but the more he got to know Renarin, the more he had come to look forward to these sessions. The prince had improved at a startling rate under Kaladin's tutelage, practicing with an intense determination that reminded Kaladin strangely of himself. Moreover, Renarin's stoic yet angsty disposition spoke to the brooding hero in Kaladin. He could not help but feel that, lighteyes or no, Renarin was someone who could understand him as few people could.

 _There he is._ Kaladin raised a hand in greeting as Renarin walked toward him across the Oathgate Plateau. Taking a deep breath of stormlight, he lashed himself forward and floated across the chasm between them, meeting Renarin at the plateau's edge.

"Good afternoon, Captain," said Renarin seriously.

Kaladin grunted in reply, noticing that Renarin's hair looked particularly luscious today. For some reason, the prince seemed to have taken to combing it carefully before their combat practices lately, even though it invariably got mussed again as soon as they started sparring. Kaladin couldn't understand why he bothered: Renarin looked good no matter what state his hair was in.

They began walking together along the chasm's edge toward the bridge to their usual sparring ground.

"Did you notice anything unusual while you were scouting?" Renarin asked gravely after a time. Solemnityspren paraded through the air over the chasm behind him.

Kaladin's customary frown deepened, and he waved away a few of the grumpyspren that were orbiting his head. "The Parshendi seem to have completely left the Shattered Plains."

"That sounds-" Renarin stopped talking suddenly, and they both spun as a _crack_ split the air. Some distance behind them, a cremling blushed sheepishly, scrambling to recover its dropped cell phone, which had made the noise as it fell upon a rock.

"Since when do cremlings have smartphones?" Kaladin asked. There was no answer. He looked around and realized that Renarin was gone—replaced by a rapidly diminishing "AAAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhh noooooo…" as he fell into the chasm at Kaladin's feet.

Without thinking, Kaladin threw himself into the abyss after Renarin, triple-lashing himself downward to overtake the prince in his fall. Renarin was nearly to the bottom—he was going to be too late—

Kaladin yelled and doubled his lashing, and, shooting downward, reached Renarin and wrapped his arms protectively around him mere feet from the chasm floor.

Kaladin reversed his lashings and Renarin clutched him tightly as the two of them rose through the abyss. In a moment, they had landed safely on the plateau above the chasm.

"You didn't need to do that," Renarin pointed out. "I can breathe stormlight too, you know. The fall wouldn't have hurt me that much."

"Oh. Right." Kaladin had forgotten about that.

"But thank you," Renarin added seriously. "That was very valient." Kaladin realized suddenly that they still had their arms around each other. He cleared his throat nervously. Somewhere, an axehound barked.

"You know," Renarin whispered, "you have beautiful eyes."

Kaladin scowled. "I liked them better when they were darker."

"I'm sorry. What I meant was, your ill-tempered hyper-protectiveness makes my heart go pitter-patter."

"I—" Kaladin stopped. Pink, heart-shaped lovespren were swooping around them distractingly. He wanted so much to tell Renarin that he felt the same way, but— The memory of Tarah's face as she sank through the water alongside the doomed Titanic rose unbidden to his mind's eye. _Everyone I court ends up dead. Do I really want that to happen to Renarin?_ "I'm sorry," he whispered. "But I have to be alone." He let go of Renarin and stepped back—then, unable to bear the pain in Renarin's expression, he turned and fled, launching himself into the desolate winds above the Shattered Plains.

A few minutes and many miles later, Kaladin landed atop a bungalow-shaped hill, stumbling against a chimney-shaped rock. The pain as he stubbed his toe was too much on top of everything else, and he let out his feelings by combining every single swearword he knew into a single foul-mouthed utterance: "Stormfather storm it! Storm take the storming storm!" He sank to the ground despondently and wrapped his arms around his knees, gazing moodily toward the Origin as he took solace in his solitude.

"Why, Kaladin Stormblessed! Fancy meeting you here!"

Kaladin sprang up, turning furiously to face Wit. "Storm you, Wit! What are you doing in my angst-fest?"

Wit smiled and adjusted his incredibly stylish fedora. Hatspren popped into view. "Let me tell you a story."

Kaladin glowered at him. "Not this again."

Ignoring him, Wit pulled a saxophone out of his voluminous pants and started to play. As the soulful notes filled the air, visions of jambalaya seemed to dance between them.

After a time, Wit paused his playing and looked at Kaladin expectantly.

Kaladin sighed. _The only way to get this over with is to play along_ , he told himself. "It's a song about a city by the sea," he said.

Wit nodded. "Once upon a Mardi Gras, there lived a boy named Bob. The bayou was his domicile, and singing was his job." He played a few lyrical phrases.

"But he was very very sad, because he had trouble hitting the high notes," Kaladin continued drily.

"A piece assigned by Bob's voice teacher had a note he couldn't quite hit. Day after day, he tried to reach it—and then, one day, he did!"

Wit played a high note that turned into a squeak. Wit winced, and Kaladin smirked. "What's that? Did a highstorm strike?"

"Yes," Wit replied with great dignity. "As Bob sang this note, a great wind shook the building. The boy sang and sang, accompanied by the drumming of rain and the, uh, the cymbals of… of metal things falling. When he emerged from the building, he saw that flood and death had overtaken the city, and all was in ruin." Wit played a solemn note.

"And he never managed to hit that note again," Kaladin finished darkly.

Wit raised an eyebrow. "Didn't he?" The saxophone slid questioningly up the scale. "Bob tried again and again to sing that note, and the weeks and months went by." He raised the saxophone to his lips and emitted several more ear-splitting squeaks, and Kaladin clapped his hands over his ears, glaring at him.

"And then one day," Wit went on, "he did it again, to everyone's surprise!" He played the note again, clear and sweet this time. "Within hours, however, another storm had overswept the city, just as horrific as the one before. When the storm had passed, Bob looked out upon the suffering of his city, and from that day forward, he swore to sing no more."

Kaladin folded his arms. "This is a horrible thing to make light of," he snapped. "And do you mean to tell me this boy's singing brought on _highstorms_?"

Wit smiled. "Do _you_ think it did?"

"No," said Kaladin flatly. "That doesn't even make sense. It was a coincidence. Or maybe the… the change in barometric pressure before the storm made singing easier, or something."

"Exactly," said Wit, and he lowered his saxophone.

Kaladin frowned. _What?_

It hit him then, and his mouth dropped open. "Do you mean to tell me that just because two things tend to happen together doesn't mean one of them causes the other?"

Wit smiled again.

A warm feeling spread through Kaladin's stomach, like the burning of pewter, or like the gas induced by a delicious bowl of gumbo. Tarah and Rillir's deaths weren't his fault after all! "Thank you," he said earnestly to Wit, and without waiting a moment more, flew back the way he had come.

As Kaladin soared back over the Plains, he wondered what he would say to Renarin. With Tarah he'd used the line "Hey, baby, do you think I'd fit in your safepouch?" along with a well-timed wink, but that wouldn't work here… His thoughts were interrupted, however, by the sight of the Oathgate Plateau. It was completely devoid of all human life: Renarin had gone.

Curled into a tight ball, Renarin sat in the shadow of a large yurt-shaped boulder, pressing his forehead into his knees. He had been a fool to think someone like Kaladin could love someone like him—and now that Kaladin had learned of his folly, he found he couldn't muster the will to Oathgatespaz back to Urithiru to face everyone else.

Gertrude, his spren, purred anxiously as she rubbed up against his ankles. "Renarin? What's wrong? Why are you hiding?"

He shook his head, not looking up. This was something Gertrude could never understand. She fell silent, and after a minute he heard her padding softly away, leaving him feeling even more alone than before.

Kaladin landed on the plateau where he had left Renarin, not knowing what to do. "Storm it," he said aloud. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know," said Syl from his shoulder. "Why don't you ask _her_?"

"Who?" Kaladin looked around and saw a one-eared tabby spren waving her paw at them from atop a yurt-shaped rock. "Isn't that Renarin's spr—Oh!" He flew to the top of the rock. There below him Renarin sat immobile, his head resting on his knees.

Kaladin stepped forward and drifted gently to the ground. "Um," he said, and saw Renarin tense at the sound.

He sat down next to the prince and put his arm around him. "Renarin, I—" He stopped, his angst making it difficult for him to express his emotions.

Renarin raised his head and looked at him, the sun glimmering moistly off the tears in his eyes.

Kaladin swallowed hard and said gruffly, "You make my heart go pitter-patter too."

Renarin gazed deeply into Kaladin's eyes, nodded slowly, and leaned forward to meet Kaladin's kiss.


End file.
